January/February 2002 newsletter

THE RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE NEWSLETTER
Volume 3, Issue 1 -- January/February 2002
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The Religious Language Newsletter is written and published every other month by Suzette Haden Elgin, Ph.D. (linguistics), from the Ozark Center for Language Studies (OCLS), PO Box 1137, Huntsville, AR 72740-1137 USA; e-mail OCLS@madisoncounty.net. It's available by e-mail only, in plain text, and is free to members of the Lovingkindness Network; thanks to a generous donation, all issues are posted at http://www.forlovingkindness.org. To join the Lovingkindness Network, send $5.00 (annual dues for each calendar year) to OCLS; please be sure to include your e-mail address with your check, money order, or credit card information. (Supporting Memberships are $15.00.) Donations to LK are tax-deductible. For more information, or to request a free sample issue, contact OCLS.
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IN THIS ISSUE: Editor's Note; Network Input; Booknotes; Prayer Update, Continued; Quotes & Comments; Cyberstuff

EDITOR'S NOTE

Thank you for all the fine and useful materials that you've been sending. Thank you for joining the Network for another year, and for all your support and encouraging words. And a warm welcome to our new Network members.

To all of you whose letters I failed to answer, whose holiday cards I failed to send, and whom I have neglected in ways too various to mention: I'm truly sorry. All four of us here spent much of December in the toils of whooping cough, or pneumonia, or both. That -- plus the usual holiday preparations for a huge family -- has had me tied me up in knots. Hard as I tried, I just could not manage to get everything done. Things will improve now that there's less in-house chaos. If you've asked me a question that I haven't answered, if I seem to have forgotten something I told you I would do -- anything of that kind -- please help me out by sending a reminder, so that I can set things straight. I won't consider it nagging, I'll consider it much-needed assistance, and I'll be grateful.

NETWORK INPUT

1. From Douglas Dee... "If you have access to The Australian Journal of Linguistics, you should check out the latest issue (vol 21 # 2, Oct 2001). There's an article "The Indigenous Linguistic Response to Missionary Authority in the Pacific" by Terry Crowley on pp. 239-260. It relates how 19th century missionaries often translated the Bible and other religious materials into highly eccentric versions of Pacific languages (mostly because the missionaries were not yet very good at the languages, but sometimes because they tried to "improve" a language by e.g. adding a passsive construction). On Erromango in southern Vanuatu, this mangled version of the local language has ever since been preferred to the normal native variety for religious purposes. The inhabitants much prefer to have their prayers and hymns in the missionary version rather than the ordinary everyday version of their language. Odd, isn't it?"

Interesting, for sure. I'm not sure it's odd, however. People everywhere fancy religious language that "sounds" religious, as opposed to sounding just like daily conversation. For every worshipper who favors the latest contemporary translation of the Bible -- where "Fear not!" morphs to "Don't be afraid!" and "Peace, be still!" morphs to "Be quiet!" -- there is another (me, for example) who thinks that this trendy process diminishes the power of the religious language; for every Catholic who welcomes the English mass, there's another who wants the Latin back. It seems to me that what you describe for Erromango is a clear example of wanting to keep the Latin.

2. From Moonyean: "The section about prayer brought to mind a talk I heard by author Anne Lamott. She said that her prayers fall into two very simple categories: 'Please, please, please, please, please, please' and 'Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.' I found that very amusing at the time & still get a chuckle out of it."

That's a system, and it has its merits; but I think it's missing a piece or two. For example: "Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry." And then there's the need for praising, separate from thanking. English seems to be lacking a praise-phrase that would fit. Maybe "Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!" would do it?

3. From Michael Farris, responding to my notes on the problem of Arabic religious language: "I'm curious about the claim that elite and poorer Arabs speak very different versions of Arabic. ... There _are_ divisive political differences between rich and poor in the Arab world (within and between Arabic-speaking countries) but I don't think these are language-based primarily. The great differences between modern varieties of spoken Arabic versus the archaic written standard and its more or less artificial spoken counterpart are a problem in many areas, but I'm not aware of rabble rousers using street language that the elite doesn't understand."

I know little about Arabic; for what I wrote, I relied on my research sources, some of whom were Arabic scholars, including some native speakers of Arabic and contemporary Arabic writers. They could be wrong; I could most assuredly be wrong. (I'd be grateful for comment from network members knowledgeable on the subject.) It seems to me that what's being taught in the extremist religious schools for young boys is an example of the phenomenon my sources were warning against.

However, let's suppose Michael is correct that no rabble rouser has yet taken advantage of this situation; I believe that the point remains valid. Whenever the religious language of a faith is opaque to a sizable segment of an illiterate and theologically naive public, but is perceived by them as sacred, misuse and abuse of that language in the service of "causes" will be a constant potential danger. As the gulf between contemporary spoken Arabic and the Arabic of the sacred texts grows ever wider, making widespread literacy ever more difficult to achieve, that danger grows ever greater. The fact that Christianity has no objection to seeing the English of the Bible put into contemporary translations creates a very different set of circumstances.

BOOKNOTES

1. _Lying Awake_, by Mark Salzman. Vintage Books NY, 2000; ISBN #0-375-70606-2.

Hildegarde of Bingen's visions were only migraines... Ezekiel's visions were only epileptic seizures.... mystical experiences are nothing but configurations of the brain triggered by various human experiences and practices... and now we have this much-praised book by Mark Salzman. It poses a question: Suppose you are someone who has glorious mystical experiences and you learn that they're caused by a tumor in your brain; would you have the tumor removed? Salzman's novel gives us a nun facing precisely that question, and her answer. I was impressed by much of the book, but found its ending inadequate and unsatisfactory. The _San Francisco Chronicle_ praised it for being "spare"; I felt that it was too hastily written. (_I Heard the Owl Call My Name_ is spare; this book is just incomplete.) Well worth reading, however. Salzman goes to considerable pains to make clear that what the nun experienced as mystical bliss was perceived by others -- those who were observing her at the time -- as foolish and inappropriate behavior that constituted a nuisance to the community. The contrast between her perceptions and those of others -- divine versus tacky -- is unpleasant.

2. _Saints and Madmen: Psychiatry Opens Its Doors to Religion_, by Russell Shorto. Henry Holt NY, 1999; ISBN #0-8050-5902-4.

Recommended (and a very good book to read along with _Lying Awake_). Shorto writes about what he refers to as the "New Psychotics," people who, when offered the choice between sanity and a psychosis that includes mystical experience, choose the psychosis. He describes many psychiatric patients who are quite emphatic about that preference, and who say that no part of being "normal" can compensate them for the loss of what they experience when they are "insane"; he describes the reactions of psychiatrists to these patients and to the entire situation. On page 192, Shorto states three propositions:

"There is reason to suspect that some psychotic experiences and some religious experiences are identical. This area of overlap involves the feeling of the dissociation of the boundaries between self and others.
This overlap suggests a biochemical factor in religious experience. However, it may be premature to conclude that the biochemical factors are the real underlying explanation of the experiences.
Spirituality, then, has a real biological component but should not be reduced to mere biology. It, like psychosis, may be far stranger than our current imaginings allow. In other words, we may be wise to reserve for religious experience the dignity of mystery -- we may not want to reduce it to the level of brain chemistry."

3. _Listening Spirituality: Volume 1, Personal Spiritual Practices Among Friends_, by Patricia Loring. Openings Press DC, 1997; ISBN #0-9657599-0-3. [A gift to the LK library from Sally Lloyd.]

This is an interesting book, and a useful one -- and hard to describe. Loring (who has had decades of experience as a spiritual director) calls it "a celebration of our traditional Quaker knowledge that we are all one in the loving Spirit of God, with unique parts to play as we work together, not only in particular projects but in continuing co-creation with God's work in the world -- whether to bring us together with the divine, with one another, or with the creation, which turn out to be facets of the same reconcilation." That makes it no less difficult to describe. Here's a sample from page 82, commenting on the Jesus Prayer (given here as "Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner"):

"Some modern Friends find themselves unable to embrace a prayer in which they designate themselves a sinner. Their repugnance often comes from the association with the word 'sinner' in harshly puritanical traditions which consider human beings hopelessly depraved. Some are helped by the knowledge that the New Testament Greek word for sin is the same as that for missing the mark in an archery practice. Stripped of the sense of depravity and disgust, the expression becomes a realistic acknowledgment of one's inevitable humans limitations, imperfection, frailty, fault, brokenness."

4. _Praying with Our Hands: 21 Practices of Embodied Prayer from the World's Spiritual Traditions_, by Jon M. Sweeney. Skylight Paths VT, 2000; ISBN #1-893361-16-0.

I was disappointed in this book, but it's my own fault; I was expecting it to be something that it's not. It is in fact a superb _gift_ book, or a wonderful book to put in a waitingroom. It offers beautiful photographs and broad expanses of white space with brief comments; it wasn't intended to provide a lot of hefty content. As a gift book or waitingroom book, I can recommend it wholeheartedly. This quote from page 20 explains what the author had in mind: "The meaning in our heads can become the meaning in our bodies. When we use our bodies with spiritual intent, both our bodies and the occasion become sacred. Sometimes these bodily actions accompany spoken prayers; sometimes they are prayers in and of themselves."

Some of the 21 "practices of embodied prayer," each with its own photograph, are: accepting the Eucharist; saying grace at the table; the Cosmic Mudra; foot washing; making an altar; passing the peace.

5. _Chakras: Energy Centers of Transformation_, by Harish Johari. Destiny Books VT, 2000; ISBN 0-89281-760-7.

Every book about the chakras is horrendously hard to read, let alone understand. There are two closely-related reasons for this. First, there's the fact that Western science doesn't believe the chakras exist -- but because they are part of a great religious faith they must be treated with respect; they can't be treated as fantasy or quackery. Second, there's the fact that English has no _vocabulary_ for the things that need to be discussed in a book about the chakras. I keep reading "just one more," in the hope that I'll stumble upon one that's at least as comprehensible as a linguistics text by Chomsky.

I'm happy to say that this book does meet that standard. I cannot say that it's easy reading -- like other books on this topic, it relies on a huge array of Sanskrit words and phrases for which there are still no English equivalents. But the book is well made and well written, and -- best of all -- well organized. It has beautiful illustrations, and detailed explanations. It makes every effort to be at one and the same time a work written in religious language and a work written in scientific language (which is much like figure-skating while doing your income taxes, and creates predictable difficulties). It opens with "This book is an introduction to the classical understanding of chakras, which are most simply defined as psychic centers of transformation that enable one to move toward an enlightened state of being. Although the roots of the knowledge about chakras are of ancient origin, this knowledge is still functionally practical today." And on page 2 Johari faces the difficulty squarely and lets the reader know precisely how matters stand, saying, "...[C]hakras cannot be defined physiologically, or through any physical science such as neurochemistry. However, chakras are not imaginary centers; they are subtle centers that can be activated by the techniques described in this book." ("Subtle" here is a technical term, referring to the "subtle body" that is said to exist in addition to the physical body.)

The chapter titles are: Introduction; Principles of Tantra Yoga; Kundalini and Yoga; The Essentials of the Chakras; Chakras, Rebirth, and Spirituality. There's an appendix. with relevant quotations from Hindu scriptures, a glossary, and an index. Recommended; just be prepared to struggle. [Note: For information about research studies on the chakras, as well as detailed discussion of the chakras from the point of view of medical science rather than religion, I recommend Richard Gerber's book, _Vibrational Medicine_.]

PRAYER UPDATE, CONTINUED

In the 11-12/01 issue I wrote about a recent double-blind research study on the effects of prayer in reproductive medicine -- a study the researchers claimed to have published only because they're hoping that other scientists will repeat the experiment and get different results. They expected prayer to have _no_ effect on their research subjects and they weren't pleased when their results appeared to prove them wrong; their data showed a doubling of the success rate for in vitro fertilization in women who were prayed for. None of the 199 women, or their physicians, or the medical personnel involved in their care, knew that a study of prayer was being conducted.

1. Elizabeth Barrette's response to this item surprised me (and my surprise demonstrates that I hadn't thought this issue through as carefully as I should have done). "This sounds extremely unethical," she wrote. "First, it is wrong to put human beings into a medical study without their informed consent. The scientists in this case thought prayer wasn't 'real' medicine -- and they're wrong. It has real effects, to which people were subjected without their knowledge or permission."

Elizabeth is absolutely right that the reason the researchers felt no obligation to get informed consent from those involved in the study is that they were convinced in advance that prayer _has_ no effects; thus, no agreement to accept the risk of those effects was required. Their purpose in doing the study was presumably to put to rest what they perceived as all the nonsense in the media about prayer as a therapeutic measure. Now that they've gotten results which appear to prove that prayer _does_ have medical effects, it's going to be impossible to replicate the experiment, since no other research team could ethically carry it out without getting informed consent. That hadn't occurred to me, and it seems to me that there can be no question about this within the context of medical research. It makes me even more in favor of the prayer research done with seedlings and enzymes and assorted bacteria and viruses.

However, Elizabeth's letter raises another issue. She goes on to say, "There's a certain amount of leeway for things like praying for friends/family/etc. or for people by _category_ (i.e. "God bless the victims of the 9/11 disaster"); but targeting a specific stranger without their informed consent is just ... indecent."

Could I have some network input on this question, please? If the basic principle is that you should not pray for anyone without their knowledge and consent, I'm not at all sure I understand how friends, family, and generic categories are to be excluded from that prohibition. Surely friends, family, and generic categories have the same rights that strangers have?

2. In writing about this experiment I also said that the results were exceedingly inconvenient for science and medicine. "The most serious scientific problem," I said, "is the 'nonlocal intervention' problem." If I'd stopped there I would have been all right, but I didn't; I went on to define the "nonlocal intervention" problem as "the idea that something can be done to affect living organisms without any identifiable link (or other recognized effective mechanism) between the person who prays and the organism being prayed for." A scientist in the Network who prefers to remain anonymous then wrote to gently correct me, explaining that "non-local" is "a technical term for influences that (appear to) travel faster than the speed of light."

The depth of my confusion will be clear to you when I admit -- as I am obliged to do -- that I had absolutely no idea that the speed of light was involved in any way whatsoever in the controversy about whether praying for someone or something can affect that someone or something. It was as if the scientist had told me that the whole controversy revolved around the history of Poland, or around a fruitcake recipe. The correspondence that followed, and the intensive reading I've been doing on the speed of light in an effort to repair my ignorance, have helped a little. But not enough; I still don't understand. The more I read about the speed of light as a barrier, the less I like it and the more arbitrary and wrongheaded it seems to me. (When I have trouble understanding something, I don't fool around.) I'm accustomed to the idea that the speed of light constraint makes it awkward for human beings to explore the universe, but learning that it's the scandal in the prayer controversy was a shock. My thanks to our scientist, and my apologies to the rest of you.

QUOTES & COMMENTS

1. "I think that so-called 'past-life recollection' is for flakes. But the Inexorable Karmic Law is a beautiful, hardcore metaphysic. It means that our every word and action has not just a consequence, but makes a spiritual imprint upon the soul that is as real as the consequences of any law of physics. The repercussions of our works and acts are inescapable, and as certain to rebound upon us as falling rocks or trees."

[David James Duncan, in "A Conversation with David James Duncan," interviewed by Doug Thorpe on pp. 55-69 of the Summer 2001 _Image_; on page 67.]

2. The Crossings Book Club holiday offerings this year included a Bibleman Video Set. The blurb for _Breaking the Bonds of Disobedience_ reads: "Willie Aames is Bibleman and he's here to defend God's Word against the forces of evil! In this adventure, Bibleman introduces a new hero, Biblegirl, and they show

kids the rewards of good behavior. It's a powerful message for kids ages 5 to 14."

Our focus at Lovingkindness is the effects of religious language, and I'm certainly interested in its effects on children -- but I just cannot bring myself to spend hard-earned money on the Bibleman (which I suspect are really OldTestamentman) videos, somehow. That is narrow-minded of me, and cheap, and a stifling of the spirit of inquiry, but there it is. If Bibleman had introduced Biblewoman instead of Biblegirl I might have felt more hopeful; why call her "hero" rather than "heroine" and still call her "girl"?? If any of you know more about this Bibleman construct or his sidegirl, I'd be grateful for your input. In particular, I'd be pleased to know whether the writers/producers do anything more than just change the labels.

3. The 11/12/01 issue of _Books & Culture_ had a delightful article by Paul Elie titled "The Last Catholic Writer in America?", on pages 14-17; I recommend it. Elie explains that every Catholic writer has a perception of "working alone in the dark" and tends to worry that he or she is the last Catholic writer in America, as well as "the only writer who cares about religion, and the only Catholic who has any literary taste." He identifies as the four greatest Catholic writers Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Walker Percy, and Flannery O'Connor; he marvels that today's best writer about the religious life is "a Protestant laywoman," Kathleen Norris. (He doesn't mention that Norris manages to be simultaneously Protestant and Catholic, simultaneously monastic and secular; perhaps he's afraid to.) Three samples:

"When somebody asked [Flannery] O'Connor why she wrote about Protestants and not Catholics, she replied that Protestants had more interesting fanatics. If you are a Catholic fanatic, she explained, you disappear into a convent and are heard from no more, whereas if you are a Protestant fanatic 'there is no convent for you to join and you go about in the world getting into all sorts of trouble and drawing the wrath of people who don't believe anything much at all down on your head.' " (page 15)

"The Catholic writer envies, say, Jewish writers, who seem to have achieved a freedom to write about their tradition as their own without having to agonize over the literal truth of biblical and theological claims. But our tradition compels us to regard statements about God as true or false. It insists, as Hazel Motes put it, that either Jesus was God or he was a liar." (page 16) [Which makes me want to get hold of Mr. Elie and find out why Catholicism rejects out of hand the idea that either Jesus was God or he was a liar or he was _mistaken_.]

"The Archdiocese of Chicago has recently taken out billboard space on the sides of the highways. The billboards say, _If you're looking for a sign from God, this is it_. Well, the Catholic writer is interested in the story of the individual person... who sees one of those billboards and really does see it as a sign from God -- and, say, winds up becoming a priest. How does that happen? What is that person thinking as he drives by?" (page 17)

4. _Religion Bookline for 11/20/01 had this brief review of _Portraits of the Word: Great Verses of the Bible in Expressive Calligraphy_, by Timothy R. Botts (Tyndale):

"Thousands of Americans have Botts's distinctive biblical art adorning their walls, his work instantly recognizable by its vivid colors, grand calligraphic lettering, and soft, curving lines. In the tradition of the medieval illuminated manuscript, Botts paints "word portraits" in which the words themselves constitute the whole of each picture. Some of Botts's finest work is gathered in this showy gift book, which uses the New Living Translation of the Bible for the 75 verses that are illustrated. Botts provides commentary on his creative decisions for each sample, as well as short prayers based on the chosen verses."

I did a googlesearch for Botts, and was intrigued by his statement (at http://www.promisechecks.com/artists/tb/default.htm) that in most of his work he is "making _word pictures_ -- words expressed to look like what they mean." Because I so liked the samples of his work at the site, I went to amazon.com and bn.com to see more; I ended up buying two of his books (_Proverbs: Timeless Wisdom from the Bible in Expressive Calligraphy_ and _The Book of Psalms_) for the Lovingkindness library. Please go look; these books are beautiful, sturdy hardcovers, so reasonably priced that you'll be amazed. And now I have to buy another copy of _The Book of Psalms_ for LK, because I very quickly realized that I wasn't willing to give it up.

5. Consider this quotation, please.....

"Have you reached the stores of snow,
or seen the stock of hailstones
that I have laid up for times of trouble,
days of battle, days of war?

Where is the path to where lightning forks,
when an east wind scatters it over the ground?"

Those lines come from page 144 of Raymond P.Scheindlin's _The Book of Job_ (W.W. Norton 1998); they're from Job 38: 20-25. I am so fond of the King James version of Job that I look at all other versions with a very sturdy bias. The first time I tried to read Scheindlin's version I couldn't get through it; it wasn't the _real_ book of Job for me, you perceive. But I keep going back for another look. (Scheindlin should be a trustworthy translator; he's professor of medieval Hebrew literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.) Recommended.

6. Sometimes namings and word-coinings please me and are a great relief because they make it possible to talk about something more efficiently and effectively. However, the one that appears in a "resources" sidebar on page 13 of the 11-12/01 _Sojourner's_ (sent by Pat Mathews) sets my teeth on edge. It's clever; it's an example of a grammatical process called "overlap deletion"; it would be hard to translate. Here it is:

"The Christian Information Service in Croatia has published a small but powerful book titled _RefuJesus_. Author and activist Boris Peterlin meditates on Jesus in today's refugee camps. ... Available in several languages..."

CYBERSTUFF

1. _Religion Bookline_ for 12/18/01 reported that Miroslav Volf has won this year's $200,000 Grawemeyer Award in religion for _Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation_, published by Abingdon in 1996. The Grawemeyer Award was established, writer Cindy Crosby explains, "to honor authors whose works contribute significantly to an understanding of the relationship between human beings and the divine, and ways in which this relationship may inspire or empower human beings to attain wholeness, integrity, or meaning, either individually or in community."

2. From "Islam Has Been Hijacked, and Only Muslims Can Save It," by Jonathan Rauch, online at http://www.press.uchicago.edu/News/911rauch.html:

"Like it or not -- and no one likes it -- Islamic terrorism is a real and distinct phenomenon. Religion is at its heart. ... As a theoretical point, it is certainly fair to say that these groups misinterpret and pervert Islam, but in practice that hardly matters, since what they are doing is establishing and rapidly extending a new religion with the divine right to murder as its creed."

3. Douglas Dee sent me to http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/lgpress/2001-04/essay.html, where I found a long and passionate article by Michael D. O'Brien titled "Harry Potter and the Paganization of Children's Culture." It says the usual things: The basic principle is that if kids read about witchcraft they'll go out and try to do witchcraft. [Our local paper (_The Madison County Record_, a weekly) has been smoking lately with letters to the editor about whether or not the Harry Potter books will destroy our children; they don't match O'Brien's rhetoric, but the principle expressed by the anti-Harry-Potter faction is exactly the same.] I recommend reading the article; it's extraordinary.

I continue to be baffled by this. Suppose we accept the idea that the Harry Potter books and movie focus on stories of wicked deeds and vile practices. I don't think that's true, but let's accept it for the sake of argument. The Bible offers an abundance of such stories. Two women seduce their drunken father in an effort to become pregnant by him; a woman is cut up into pieces and the pieces are sent to her relatives; a batch of rowdies (male) demand that a man hand over a guest (male) for sexual pleasure, and the host offers them his daughter in the guest's place; a woman invites a man to dinner and then murders him by driving a nail through his forehead; a leader fancies another man's wife and sends her husband into battle to get him killed so that said leader can marry the wife.... We could go on and on with that list; insert your favorite examples. No one suggests that normal children who read these Bible stories will go out and try to copy them in the real world. Why, then, do people believe that those children will read secular books and copy what they read there? And why, if reading about evil will reliably cause normal kids to do evil, doesn't reading about good reliably cause normal kids to do good?

4. For a fine discussion of the Pipe Ceremony in Native American religious practice, go to http://spiritpath0.tripod.com/issue_14.htm Recommended.

5. Two URLs you might want to check out: "Buddhism in the U.S.," a special report on the subject from Asia Source, at http://www.asiasource.org/news/ at_mp_02.cfm?newsid=54751; and the "Christian Literature Today" site, at http://www.christianliteraturetoday.com, which offers "Christian literature, reviews of literary works, such as fiction, drama, and poetry, original creative writings in Christian literature, crosscultural Christian literature from around the world and in all languages."

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